There is a little movie in theaters called Black Panther. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you’ve seen it. Odds are you have; with $27 million more in ticket sales over the weekend, Panther has now crossed $600 million at the U.S. box office. It is just the seventh film in history to cross that threshold. Here’s the full weekend box office chart:

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

Total

1

Black Panther

$27,024,000 (-33%)

$7,049

$605,400,528

2

Tomb Raider

$23,525,000

$6,104

$23,525,000

3

I Can Only Imagine

$17,064,640

$10,476

$17,064,640

4

A Wrinkle in Time

$16,565,000 (-50%)

$4,162

$61,059,654

5

Love, Simon

$11,500,000

$4,788

$11,500,000

6

Game Night

$5,570,000

$2,074

$54,174,184

7

Peter Rabbit

$5,200,000 (-23%)

$1,908

$102,440,268

8

The Strangers: Prey at Night

$4,810,000 (-53%)

$1,952

$18,612,052

9

Red Sparrow

$4,450,000 (-47%)

$1,723

$39,583,642

10

Death Wish

$3,368,000 (-48%)

$1,259

$29,949,685

Black Panther continues to be one of the most remarkable box-office stories of the decade. It’s almost certain it will become the biggest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the domestic box office; The Avengers sits about $18 million away at $623.3 million. It should pass that number next weekend. (Worldwide, Black Panther’s $1.18 billion puts it in fourth place behind the two Avengers movies and Iron Man 3, which it will pass within weeks or days.) I expected Black Panther to be a massive hit, but not this massive. This is incredible.

In its fifth weekend in theaters, Black Panther still overcame the big new release of the moment: Tomb Raider, starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. This rebooted version of the video game franchise grossed an estimated $23.5 million in its theatrical debut. That’s less than half what the first Tomb Raider movie (starring Angelina Jolie) made when it opened in theaters in 2001 ($47.7 million) but about on par with its sequel, The Cradle of Life ($21.7 million). CinemaScore voters gave it just a B, suggesting word of mouth will not be strong enough to push it into blockbuster territory.

A surprising blockbuster, at least for its budget, came in third place for the weekend, the faith-based film I Can Only Imagine, which also got an impressive A+ CinemaScore. The film, starring Dennis Quaid and Cloris Leachman, grossed $17 million. That not only beat expectations, it beat Disney’s massive adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, which fell to third place on the box-office chart. Ava DuVernay’s children’s sci-fi film grossed $16.5 million, bringing its 10-day domestic total to $61 million. To date, it’s only made another $10 million internationally; it will need to earn a lot more than that to turn a profit for Disney. Fifth place for the weekend was the coming-of-age teen movie Love, Simon, which also received an A+ CinemaScore. It was a good weekend for smaller movies. Oh, and panthers. Panthers continue to do very well at the box office.

Speaking of smaller movies: The best per-screen average of the weekend belonged to another teen drama, The Orchard’s Flower. On three nationwide screens, the film grossed $57,851, for a PSA of $19,284. In second place for the weekend on a per-screen basis was Armando Iannucci’s bleak comedy The Death of Stalin, with an average of $18,143 at 32 locations around the country. Wakanda and Russia; theaters are a great place to go on a world tour right now.

I looked at this house for sale in Elma and went “this is right from the future”! Wait until you see the pool and the basement, too!

It’s super cool house that’s way ahead of it’s time–maybe even a little TOO much. It’s super cool house on Bullis in Elma that is something you saw in Smart House on the Disney Channel–except it’s real life.

There’s little to no carpet in the entire house. Cool? Not homely enough? What do you say about this one?

1430 Bullis Rd

Elma, NY 14059

4 beds6 baths4,416 sqft

It’s just shy of 900,000 bucks to start moving in, but make sure you take a look at the pics!

Custom-built with 450 yards of insulated concrete forms for unsurpassed insulation and quality. Features meticulous modern design and deep 5 acre wooded lot, with green construction and radiant in-floor heating for super-efficient energy systems and year-round comfort, with a roof patio and fabulous basement lounge/bar area. Beautiful, modern, updated kitchen, office space and bonus room and much more. Located minutes from Transit Road, this exceptional property has been featured in Buffalo Spree and Business First!

Hopefully you caught our Leprechaun out on Chip for the 2018 St. Patrick’s Day Parade! He and his entourage were handing out gold coins and 4-leaf clover face stickers, taking pics and and helping our Irish folks have a great time celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! It looks like all the listeners of our four radio stations – WYRK, WBLK, Mix 96 and Jack FM – had a fun time!

Buffalo is listed as the 4th Best City (out of 200 Cities) to celebrate St. Patrick’S Day, according to Wallethub.com!

Here’s are some more stats from the survey: (according to Wallethub.com)

Kane Brown has set the Guinness World Record for topping all five U.S. country charts simultaneously. He’s the first country act to accomplish this feat, and Brown says he owes the record setting to his fans.

“I attribute my success to my fans for helping me get to where I am today,” Brown says in a press release. “Music has been a huge part of my life and I feel like it’s a part of everyone’s. I love to sing and never thought I’d be able to do it and it happened for me.”

On Oct. 28, 2017, Brown became the title holder as the first act to top five U.S. country charts simultaneously, including Top Country Albums (Kane Brown Deluxe Edition); Country Digital Song Sales (“Heaven”); and Country Airplay, Hot Country Songs and Country Streaming Songs (“What Ifs” featuring Lauren Alaina). Brown was recently presented his record certificate at the Sony Music Nashville office.

“It feels awesome to be a Guinness World Records title holder and to be the first artist to achieve this with Billboard,” the singer says. “I remember being in elementary and middle school and looking at the books for all of the records, and I can’t believe my name gets to be in there now.”

Success only continues for Brown, whose self-titled debut album released in December remains the genre’s No. 1 best selling new-artist album debut since 2014. The album has stayed at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Country Album chart for eight weeks, something no other country album has surpassed.

Brown is nominated for New Male Vocalist of the Year and for Vocal Collaboration for “What Ifs” at the ACM Awards, which air live April 15 on CBS.

]]>http://wyrk.com/kane-brown-sets-guinness-world-record-attributes-success-to-fans/feed/0Credit: Alex AlvgaThe Shrine Circus Is Back With New Acts This Weekend Onlyhttp://wyrk.com/the-shrine-circus-is-back-with-new-acts-this-weekend-only/
http://wyrk.com/the-shrine-circus-is-back-with-new-acts-this-weekend-only/#commentsFri, 16 Mar 2018 16:06:46 +0000http://wyrk.com/?p=447229The 72nd Annual Shrine Circus is back in Hamburg! Join the Shriners to help raise money for their hospitals right here in Western New York.

Brad Paisley loves the idea of walking out in front of a crowd without having any idea what he’s going to say.

“There’s something masochistic about that,” he explained with a laugh during a press event at the 2018 Country Radio Seminar in early February. “I love ad-libbing.”

Paisley is no stranger to the realm of comedy: Since 2015, the country star has hosted an evening of stand-up comedy in Nashville as part of the Wild West Comedy Festival; in 2017, he debuted his own Netflix comedy special. And even when he isn’t operating in the comedy format, Paisley regularly brings his sense of humor into his songwriting; in fact, he says, he loves to bring bits of stand-up material into his live performances.

“There are moments where I’ll mess with the audience,” Paisley says. “I’ll grab someone’s cell phone or whatever. It’s meant to be funny. It’s never meant to be all that serious …

“I like being able to have an audience that might not necessarily expect that,” he adds. “I love being able to entertain people in ways that take them by surprise.”

Humor is also a defense mechanism for Paisley, who relies on it to make sure that he’s keeping crowds engaged.

“I definitely diffuse with humor,” he admits. “It’s exhausting for me to try to be cool. For example, there’s always a little bit of playing dress-up that goes along with being an artist: You get a stylist, and all of the sudden, you’re wearing things you’d otherwise never wear; you’re wearing cowboy hats and stuff, and you’ve just got to think, ‘I thought we were supposed to be authentic in this format!’ There’s very few George Straits out there who really do rope and ride all day, so for the vast majority of us, we’re playing dress-up a little, and it feels sacred and important to be able to have a sense of humor about that.

“Once, at the ACMs, I was just sitting there and I thought I looked good,” the singer recalls. “Then I noticed Jason Aldean looking over at me and cracking up. So I look down, and there’s a tag that reads 30/34, running down the entire length of my jeans. Whoops.”

Paisley didn’t stay embarrassed for too long before finding the humor in the situation, though: “One of my favorite expressions is that if you’re going to laugh about something later, you might as well laugh about it now,” he says. “And that’s hard to do with 30/34 running all the way down your leg! But comedy is tragedy plus time, right?”

Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd have a new love in their life! The country singers — who are getting married soon — got Pancake, an English bulldog, from Jon Pardi‘s mom, who lives in California.

Sacramento country station KNCI reports that Shelly Pardi breeds English bulldogs, and Morris decided to pick one of a recent litter of puppies as an engagement present for Hurd. Pardi kept Pancake hidden, taking care of the precious pup in Nashville in the days before he was able to send him to his new home. Morris already has a white Shepherd named June.

Pancake made his social media debut recently when the singer shared a photo of the furry addition to their family via Instagram. Sitting with the sweet pup curled in her lap, the “My Church” singer is clearly smitten by her new little friend. “Pancake has entered the residence,” she writes next to a cute photo, which is fittingly accompanied by three pancake emojis.

Hurd couldn’t contain his excitement when he shared a photo with Pancake on Instagram. He met him for the first time after he returned from a trip in Europe: “GOT HOME FROM LONDON. GOT A NEW DOG. HAPPY PANCAKE DAY,” he writes in all caps.

Pancake is a perfect name for the little guy, as his smooshed face is just as round and fluffy like the breakfast pastry. Pardi also confirmed that Pancake is a little love, replying on Twitter “He’s a lover and a pooper!”

Pancake’s arrival comes not long before his parents will tie the knot. Morris revealed in a January 2018 Instagram post that the couple is set to wed sometime in March. She tells Taste of Country Nights that they’re keeping the wedding simple and low-key as a way to take a breather from their hectic careers.

“I just want it to feel like us the people and not us the artists. We’re gonna have some tequila, my dog’s gonna be there,” she says. Morris is set for a whirlwind of a year, despite a muted celebration. She’s also in the process of creating her sophomore album before going out on tour with Niall Horan for the summer.

The writers of Dustin Lynch‘s “Small Town Boy” are an eclectic bunch: Rhett Akins, a songwriter and recording artist who released a handful of charting singles in the ’90s (and is Thomas Rhett‘s father); storied country songwriter Ben Hayslip; and up-and-coming songwriter and “track guy” Kyle Fishman span generations, backgrounds and styles. The trio wrote Lynch’s No. 1 single in the back of a tour bus while out on Luke Bryan‘s ninth annual Farm Tour.

“Small Town Boy” spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Country Airplay charts in 2017; to say that the song is well-known is an understatement. However, it may surprise many fans to learn just how the song was written and recorded.

“This song was written on a day when we had hung out in Knoxville until about four in the morning, and I wrote most of my part from the bunk,” Akins recalls. “Ben and Kyle were in the back.

“I sang the vocal in one pass, and it was terrible,” he continues. “I told Kyle that when we got home, I would come back in and do a real vocal. Before we had time to do that, though, it was already pitched to Dustin.”

However, the song’s producer, Zach Crowell, liked the laid-back vocals, and he “tried his hardest,” according to Akins,” to get Lynch to replicate the sound.

“There was something about that vocal he liked, even though I thought it was terrible,” Akins says. “They actually made Dustin lay on the couch. So, what you hear on the radio is actually him lying on the couch singing, trying to sound hungover.

“They wanted it to be less perfect than it could be: slow, laid-back and Southern,” Akins adds. “He was trying to sound not so perfect. I guess he was trying to sound like a small-town boy.”

Apparently, Kacey Musgraves has some very devoted fans! So devoted that they get incredibly realistic portraits tattooed on their body, like one fan did before her show at the Country to Country Festival.

Based in Scotland, a fan of Musgraves’ named Mel decided to get an awe-inspiring tattoo of her favorite country star ahead of her performance in Glasgow as part of the 2018 C2C Festival in Europe. Mel shared a photo of the extravagant ink on Twitter, showing off an elaborate headshot portrait of Musgraves tattooed on her leg. The photo used for the tattoo shows the country singer casting a serious look at the camera, while the design and incredible attention to detail make the art look almost lifelike.

“Been jumping with excitement waiting to see @KaceyMusgraves at @C2CGlasgow love her so much I even got her tattooed on my leg this week! #buzzing #country #glasgow #tattoo #c2c #C2Cfestival,” Mel writes alongside the amazing photo. It appears she was enamored by Musgraves’ show at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, writing in the comments section of the post that it was a “dream come true” to watch her perform live.

The “Space Cowboy” singer is set to drop her new album Golden Houron March 30. The title was inspired by the rare solar eclipse that occurred in August of 2017, with Musgraves pulling from different sources of inspiration to create the album. She’s performed several of the tracks live while on Little Big Town‘s the Breakers Tour and has officially released “Space Cowboy” and “Butterflies.” She’ll embark on the Oh, What a World Tour in 2018, starting with multiple dates in Europe that kick off Oct. 21 in the Netherlands.

Cam will get up close and personal with fans during her Spring 2018 tour. The trek, dubbed the Listening Room Series Tour, will take the artist to cozy venues around the United States.

Beginning on April 17 in Portland, Ore., Cam’s 2018 Listening Room Series Tour will visit 11 cities, including Brooklyn, N.Y.; Los Angeles, Calif.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Cam will wrap the trek on May 10 in Vienna, Va.; a complete list of dates is below.

On her 2018 Listening Room Series Tour, Cam promises to take fans’ requests, perform songs she’s penned for other artists, share new music and tell the stories behind her tracks (“Adult language will be used, y’all,” she cautions in a press release). Tickets will go onsale on March 16; visit CamCountry.com for full details.

Country music’s biggest party returns on April 15, and you can watch it on CBS like millions of other people … or you can see it live in the same room as stars like Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood. Enter here for your chance to win a massive trip to Vegas for ACMs weekend — there’s so much more than just the show!

Before we get to the prize, take advantage of one or more of the above entry options. You can sign up for the Taste of Country YouTube channel or email newsletter, follow us on social media or download our app. You get more entires for every option chosen and one winner will be selected from all who enter after this contest ends on March 23rd, 2018, at 11:59PM ET. Be sure to read the official Taste of Country contest rules yada, yada, yada …

Okay, so the prize: in addition to roundtrip airfare for two from anywhere in the continental U.S. (winner and guest must travel on same itinerary), you’ll get three nights hotel at the MGM Grand, two tickets to ACM Stories, Songs & Stars at the Joint, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on April 13, two wristbands to ACM Lifting Lives TopGolf Tee-Off, two passes to ACM rehearsals on April 14 and two tickets for the 53rd ACM Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 15.

Plus you’ll get two tickets to the official ACM Awards afterparty at the Joint after the show, if you can handle it! Fly home on Monday April 16 and then brag to all your friends about what a great time you had, for free!

Garth. Wynonna. George. Fans can recognize most of their favorite country and Americana artists by one name alone. Their music is so ingrained in us that we know the words to every song and the notes to every melody … but do we know the names of their backing bands?

Believe it or not, lots of your favorite performers actually have a dedicated name for the musicians who play alongside them. After all, these are the men and women who have a huge part in making their music so iconic on every record and every tour — they’ve got to have their own name, right?

Jason Isbell and Alison Krauss fans are likely familiar with their bands’ names — “the 400 Unit” and “Union Station,” respectively, often follow Isbell and Krauss’ names on album covers — but the names of the backing bands for Garth Brooks, George Strait and others are bit less well known. Click through the photo gallery above to find out who played with the Strangers, who calls his band the Easy Money Band and which band goes by the Price Tags.

[button href=”http://theboot.com/best-albums-2000s/” title=”NEXT: The Best Country Albums of the 2000s” align=”center”]

Thomas Rhett attended the Celebration of Caring Gala over the weekend, hosted by Peyton Manning to raise funds for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent. Rhett was a performer at the event at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind., and invited the Former Colts quarterback to join him for a special collaboration.

As he launched into a performance of 1995’s “That Ain’t My Truck” on Saturday night (March 10), Manning stepped up to help with the chorus. Rhett even stepped away from the mic to give Manning the lead on the song, which was originally recorded by the country singer’s father, Rhett Akins.

Legendary country band Alabama are kicking off the first leg of a new tour this spring, the band announced Thursday (March 8). The Hits Tour 2018 will launch in Grand Prairie, Texas, on March 23.

The history making trio of Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook have been playing together since 1969, and were the first country band to go triple platinum when two of their albums, Feels So Right and Mountain Music, both sold more than 3 million copies apiece. Feels So Right was released in 1981 and became Alabama’s first No. 1 record; all three singles from the record, “Old Flame,” “Love in the First Degree” and the title track, soared to the top of the charts. Mountain Music, meanwhile, which was released in 1982 also had three No. 1 singles, including the title track, “Take Me Down” and “Close Enough to Perfect.”

“This year’s tour is for the lifelong fans,” Owen says in a press release, “and also the younger generations just now discovering the music.”

A complete list of Alabama’s The Hits Tour 2018 tour dates is below. Currently, the trek includes 22 stops in the United States and Canada, and will run through early September.

This is not just a random walk down country controversy memory lane. It was March 10, 2003, when Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks told a crowd in London that they were “ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas,” referring to George W. Bush.

She made that remark during the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The resulting backlash was swift and severe.

The immediate reaction was not as hostile as one would expect. The crowd cheered, and the superstar trio went to bed without a second thought about what they had just done. Within the week country radio stations in the U.S. were not only banning their music, they were renting steamrollers and hosting parties to crush all Dixie Chicks albums into dust. It was as if an entire format had been waiting and planning for such a quip.

Toby Keith didn’t help much, but in fairness, he was responding to Maines, who’d said his hit “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” didn’t represent country music like it deserved to be represented. There was the ‘F-U-T-K’ T-shirt … and one of the most intense feuds in country music history.

Politics aside, country music lost a superstar act that day. The Dixie Chicks were as big as any artist in Nashville, and their extraction from the radio left a hole to be filled by lesser-known talent. They’d recover with a 2006 album called Taking the Long Way that won several Grammys. Since then they have toured successfully, but if there’s a time when they’ll be welcomed back to country radio with open arms, it’s not yet on the horizon.

If you’ve never been to one of Acoustic shows that we do twice a year Spring and Fall I hope this recaps encourages you to join us for the next show in the fall at UB Center for the Arts. It’s such a great way to see a show, three stars on one stage. Last night was even more special because Granger Smith, Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson are friends and have done shows together in a similar setting.

Talking with each of them prior to show time, I got the sense that it was going to be a great night. They each said such positive and complimentary words about each other and were even found bouncing from one dressing room to another to talk to each other.

]]>http://wyrk.com/wyrk-spring-acoustic-show-meet-and-greet-photos/feed/0Lanco: 'Because We're Friends, We Celebrate the Good Times and Ride Out the Bad Times Together'http://wyrk.com/lanco-because-were-friends-we-celebrate-the-good-times-and-ride-out-the-bad-times-together/
http://wyrk.com/lanco-because-were-friends-we-celebrate-the-good-times-and-ride-out-the-bad-times-together/#commentsWed, 07 Mar 2018 15:56:04 +0000http://theboot.com/?p=193865Rick Diamond, Getty Images

The ACM Awards-nominated group Lanco have enjoyed plenty of success over the past year, with their single “Greatest Love Story” topping the charts and winning the band a widespread fanbase — and if you ask frontman Brandon Lancaster, it’s all due to the friendship they share.

Earlier this year, Lancaster explained that the band originated as a group of friends who just loved playing music together. In a more recent interview, The Boot caught up with Lancaster to chat further about Lanco’s crowded living situation when they first moved to Nashville, and how being roommates affected their music.

“The five of us technically lived in a two-bedroom house,” Lancaster recalls of the group’s first year living in Nashville. “There were also three other guys, so it was technically [eight] people living in a two-bedroom house. We turned the attic and dining rooms into bedrooms, and then there was a basement where two guys lived. It was hilarious.”

Aside from being a dramatically efficient way to get to know someone, that living arrangement also quickly acquainted them with each other’s musical tastes.

“There was always music playing,” Lancaster adds. “In the summer, we’d just keep the door open and put a speaker on the porch and another speaker in the house, so there was literally always music going. It was a wild time.”

Living in close quarters with your best friends can be dangerous — many good relationships have gone south when people who have different living styles try to move in together. Fortunately for Lanco, the foundation of friendship they share has been strong enough to carry them through tough times.

“Things are really exciting right now, and we’ve experienced a lot of cool things this year, but it hasn’t always been that way,” Lancaster notes. “There were definitely times when we’d play a show at a honky-tonk in the middle of nowhere and there would be the bartender and about three random people who really didn’t care about us. But even if you have a bad show, what’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get off work? You’re gonna crack a beer open and complain to your friends. And that was us.

“So far, I think our friendship has been what keeps us together even when times are tough,” he continues. “There have been times when there’s been doubt, and no one’s been afraid to talk about that. Everyone can be honest. Everyone’s had times where they say, ‘What are we doing? How is this going to work? We don’t even have enough gas to get to the next venue.’ But because we’re friends, we celebrate the good times and ride out the bad times together.”

As stunning news broke Tuesday morning (March 6) that Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was resigning after a sex scandal, Maren Morris turned to social media to reveal that the mayor once helped her with a “terrifying” stalker.

“I get why it had to be this way, but I’m very sad Megan Barry is resigning,” Morris writes on Twitter. “As the mayor of Music City, she always came to shows. Years ago, she and Sgt. Forrest helped me by taking care of a really terrifying stalker issue I had. I felt safer as an artist in Nashville.”

Her post came just a short while after Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper broke the news that Barry pleaded guilty on Tuesday morning to felony theft of property of over $10,000 in relation to her recently revealed affair with her former police bodyguard, Sgt. Rob Forrest.

Barry has agreed to reimburse the city $11,000 in restitution, and she will serve three years of probation. She formally stepped down during a press conference on Tuesday morning. Vice Mayor David Briley will be sworn as mayor.

Barry was indicted just days after a judge in Nashville issued a search warrant based on a request from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation seeking to take possession of Barry’s cell phone. An affidavit filed with the warrant claimed that nude photos from Forrest’s phone provided evidence that Barry engaged in that affair while Forrest was on duty. Barry has repeatedly denied that their affair took place on the taxpayers’ dime. She was facing multiple investigations regarding a suspicious amount of overtime Forrest drew while traveling with her on multiple trips overseas in her role as mayor.

According to District Attorney Glenn Funk, “Had this case gone to trial, witnesses are available who would testify that in March 2016 and January 2018 Megan Barry caused over 10K but less than 60K in Metro Nashville city funds to be expended unlawfully on Mr. Robert Forrest.”

It is not yet clear whether Forrest — who retired in January before initial reports of the affair — will face separate charges.

]]>http://wyrk.com/maren-morris-reveals-nashvilles-mayor-barry-helped-her-with-terrifying-stalker/feed/0Rick Diamond, Getty ImagesBrad Paisley Reveals What Makes the Most Important Song of His Career So Specialhttp://wyrk.com/brad-paisley-reveals-what-makes-the-most-important-song-of-his-career-so-special/
http://wyrk.com/brad-paisley-reveals-what-makes-the-most-important-song-of-his-career-so-special/#commentsWed, 07 Mar 2018 06:15:13 +0000http://theboot.com/?p=193713Timothy Norris, Getty Images

That song is “Letter to Me,” a track that Paisley released in 2007, off of his fifth studio album, 5th Gear. The song spent four consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in early 2008, but Paisley admitted in a recent interview that he never expected “Letter to Me” to become a single at all.

“That song was written 100 percent for myself; it was never intended to be a single,” Paisley recalled during an event at the 2018 Country Radio Seminar. “We cut it for all the right reasons, which basically were that we knew it needed to exist.

“We sit around in [Nashville] a lot and say, ‘Here’s a thing we could put together that the fans would want to buy,'” Paisley adds. “But that’s the wrong way to do it. We need to think more about what’s going to get people emotional. I think that the best music is the music that you mean.”

Paisley has said that he was inspired to write “Letter to Me” after his wife, actor Kimberly Williams-Paisley, was asked to contribute to an anthology titled What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self, in 2007. The lyrics of the song find an older man giving his younger self advice (“You’ve got so much up ahead / You’ll make new friends / You should see your kids and your wife … Have no fear / These are nowhere near / The best years of your life”), but it’s the details of the song that impress upon the listener how personal and autobiographical “Letter to Me” really is: “First I’d prove it’s me by saying / ‘Look under your bed / There’s a Skoal can and a Playboy,'” Paisley sings in the first verse. “At the stop sign at Tomlinson and 8th / Always stop completely; don’t just tap your brakes.”

Paisley believes the song resonates with so many fans because of its emotional honesty: “The best place [for art to come from] is from a place of truth,” he says. “The reason why you laugh at something is because there’s an element of truth, something you recognize in it. A lot of the best country music is about exactly that.”